1. School of Labor and Employment Relations
Relational HR Practices, Employee Engagement, and Sales Performance: Evidence from Retail Stores in China
Helen Liu, Penn State University, University Park
Zhengtang Zhang, Nanjing University
Academy of Management Meeting
Aug 8, 2016

2. Research motivation
Why are some organizations more successful than others?
What types of HR systems and employee behaviors will contribute to an organization’s business success?

5. Relational Coordination
The current study
Supervsor-rated Relational HR Practices (T1)
Selection for cross- functional teamwork
Cross-functional meetings
Cross-functional participation
Cross-functional rewards
Cross-functional conflict resolution
Manager-rated (T2)
customer cross-buying behavior
Relational Coordination 
Employee–rated (T1)
proactive selling behaviors

6. Methods
Sample: 259 retail employees led by 84 supervisors in 17 stores
Measures
IV: Relational HR practices using five items involving selection, rewards, participation, communication, and conflict resolution (Gittell, Seidner, & Wimbush, 2010)
DV1: FLW reports of cross-selling engagement using the six-item cross-/up-selling measure from Jasmand, Blazevic, and de Ruyter (2012). α= 0.90.
DV2: we asked general managers to rate customers’ cross-buying behavior based four items (Kumar, George, & Pancras, 2008). α= 0.91.

7. Hypothesis 1. The use of relational high performance work systems is positively associated with an employee’s cross-selling behaviors. Support

8. Hypothesis 2. The use of relational high performance work systems is positively associated with customer cross-buying behavior. Support

9. Roadmap for future work
1. Relational coordination as a key explanatory mechanism
-- variability in employee-experienced RC
Potential moderators:
-- leadership styles
-- organizational climate
3. Organizational outcomes at the store level
-- objective sales performance
-- inventory turnover
-- profit margin ratio

10. Thank you for your time and feedback !
Helen Liu